


Last Chance

by amb_393



Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-08
Updated: 2019-01-08
Packaged: 2019-10-06 11:49:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17344721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amb_393/pseuds/amb_393
Summary: Future Wyatt and Future Lucy return to their present, where they have a conversation five years overdue.





	Last Chance

**Author's Note:**

> This came from an idea inspired by Misty, and I couldn't stop thinking about it. After Arika confirmed that the Futures would return to their present before the 2018 Time Team saved Rufus, I decided to make a go of it.

Wyatt opened his eyes slowly as the Lifeboat jerked to a stop.

“I forgot what a rough ride this Lifeboat is,” he groaned, scraping a hand over his beard. The nausea threatened to overwhelm him, but he firmly swallowed and forced it away. When he looked up, Lucy was yanking at the straps of her seatbelt.

He unclipped his own quickly—muscle memory—and leaned forward. His fingers brushed hers as he reached for the clasps, and his breath caught in his throat. She stiffened. It was the first time they had touched in . . months, at least. Maybe more. Most of the time he could pretend that they were nothing more than coworkers. They strategized against Rittenhouse, went on missions, and then separated to their individual sparse living quarters. It was only times like this, when he got a little too close and caught a whiff of her favorite strawberry shampoo or when the intonation of her voice sent him spiraling with déjà vu, that he allowed himself to remember how much he missed her.

“I can handle it, Wyatt,” she snapped. She tried to push his hands away, but he refused to let go.

“Let’s just say it’s for old times’ sake.” He flashed her a shadow of his old smirk, the quirked lips and smoldering eyes that used to make her weak in the knees. That could still make her weak in the knees, apparently. Damn him for that. He had spent the first year after Rufus’s death chasing Jessica, choosing Jessica, and she hadn’t been able to forgive him for that. It was easier to be angry that he hadn’t been there to catch her when she finally took the leap and fell in love with him than it was to deal with the pain of losing him.

The harness fell loose around her, and Wyatt pulled back, reaching to the dashboard to open the hatch.

Lucy didn’t move. “D’you think—Wyatt, wait—” her voice was no more than a whisper. It cracked on the syllables of his name, but he heard.

Wyatt lowered the finger hovering over the button.

“Do you think it will work? Do you think they can do it?”

He took a deep breath and turned back to face her. Lucy was scared. Her face was white under the smears of dirt. He didn’t know that Lucy Preston was still capable of fear. The Lucy in front of him was reckless and hardened and cold. She took the biggest risks, and more than once they had paid the price. He wasn’t her teammate anymore, he was a means to an end—the end of Rittenhouse.

“I hope so,” he answered gruffly. “They’re our last shot at getting Rufus back. At getting rid of Rittenhouse, at changing all of . . this.” He waved his hand vaguely toward the door of the machine, indicating the battleground outside. Their whole world had narrowed to the war against Rittenhouse after Rufus died, and it continued to steadily dwindle, like a puddle evaporating into the summer sun. The water didn’t stand a chance.

“We did what we could. Now it’s up to them. Let’s go—I’m sure Flynn is waiting for you.”

“He isn’t.”

“What did you say?” Wyatt turned back to her, shocked.

“I said he’s not waiting for me,” Lucy retorted firmly, like he hadn’t been listening.

“He left this morning before we went back to the bunker.”

“He _left_? Why? We need all the help we can get right now.”

“Because I told him to.”

Wyatt scrubbed his beard again. It had become a habit when he was upset or deep in thought. Not for the first time, Lucy wondered what it would feel like under her own fingers, against her cheek.

“Lucy, you’ve gotta tell me more,” Wyatt ground out between clenched teeth, annoyed. “Why would you send away our other soldier? Rittenhouse is around every corner, we’re losing ground every day, you almost went _insane_ from traveling back into our own timeline—”

“Because I lied to you, okay?” Lucy practically shouted. The words burst out of her before she could stop them, and it was like a dam breaking. She had spent the past five years pretending that nothing mattered, that no one mattered, that she was untouchable and unbreakable. But now all the emotions of those five years, the stress and frustration and heartbreak, were bubbling up to the surface, and she couldn’t hold them back any longer.

“Didn’t you see them? _Us_? They don’t have to turn out like this, Wyatt. They can make different choices. They can be better.”

“What are you saying?” Wyatt asked slowly.

She lifted her eyes to meet his. It felt like jumping into a cold pool—shocking at first, then refreshing.

“This mission wasn’t just about saving Rufus. I mean, of course that’s the main reason, but it’s not the only reason. He’s not the only reason I wrote the journal.”

Wyatt sat motionless in the hard seat, staring at her, and she forged ahead before he could interrupt.

“I never wanted to be with Flynn, not really. I did it because I was angry and hurt and sad, and because I want to get revenge on you. After, you know . .”

“After Jessica,” he breathed, nodding. “Lucy, I am so sorry. I never had the chance to tell you that. By the time I realized that she was lying to me and manipulating me—that she had been lying and manipulating me our whole lives—it was over. You and me . . it was ruined. I had ruined it.”

Lucy felt her eyes prick with hot tears, and she blinked them back. “No, you never said that.”

He reached out like he wanted to touch her and then pulled back just as quickly, clasping his hands between his knees as if to hold himself back. “I’m sorry,” he repeated earnestly. “I will never be able to tell you how truly sorry I am. And if that meant that you had found comfort and—happiness—with Flynn, then I wasn’t going to get in the way of that.”

Lucy’s stomach clenched. Letting herself get close to Flynn, crossing that line with him, had been the biggest mistake of her life. It was a classic excuse—it’s not you, it’s me. Even before Flynn had kissed her for the first time, she had been lying to herself by pretending that she could ever care about someone else even a fraction of the way she cared about Wyatt. She had been trying to heal herself and ended up deepening the wound and hurting Flynn too.

“Things were bad after we lost Rufus. Really bad,” she continued. “But they got even worse because _we_ stopped working together. We were always better together . . weren’t we?”

She watched his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed thickly. “Yeah, we were.”

“And I don’t know how to fix us,” she whispered. “Not anymore, not like this. So, I convinced you to travel back into our own timeline. I don’t know how to fix this except to just erase it all and start over again. That’s why I wrote the journal. So they can have one last chance to save Rufus—and us.”

This time she was the one to reach out, laying her hand over Wyatt’s. He twisted his fingers around hers tightly, desperately, threading their hands together. His blue eyes were bright but still cautious.

“I’d like that,” he rasped.

“You’re not mad?”

“I’m not mad.”

“I guess—now we just have to wait. We’ll never know if they can do it or not.”

“No, we’ll never know,” Wyatt agreed. “If they do, we’ll disappear and never remember this timeline. If not . .,” his voice trailed off, and he lifted one shoulder in a lopsided shrug.

“So, where does that leave us?”

“Same place as always,” he replied, releasing her hands and returning to the dashboard. He pushed a button, and the Lifeboat hatch slid open. “Kicking ass and saving the world.”


End file.
